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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29711913">Fire Within</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aIewife/pseuds/aIewife'>aIewife</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Azutara Week 2021, Even though im late as fuck, F/F, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Katara is pissed lol, Lesbian Azula (Avatar), Lesbian Katara (Avatar), Rangshi is tagged because there are some scraps</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:54:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,625</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29711913</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aIewife/pseuds/aIewife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>To Azula, it was very clear. She was going to die.<br/>She had her ribs broken, her wrist was twisted on a weird angle and the gaping wound on her head couldn’t stop bleeding.<br/>She was going to die.<br/>If her wife didn’t kill her first, of course.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Azula/Katara (Avatar), Kyoshi/Rangi (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>184</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fire Within</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Okay im super late to the azutara week but i still wanted to post this. I guess this fills mainly the prompt of Healing but also maybe the dark azutara too?IdK. Let me know what you guys think!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>To Azula, it was very clear. She was going to die.</p><p>She had her ribs broken, her wrist was twisted on a weird angle and the gaping wound on her head couldn’t stop bleeding.</p><p>She was going to die.</p><p>If her wife didn’t kill her first, of course.</p><p>Azula had heard all her life terrible jokes about Firebenders wives. How they had the worst temper, the worst anger and that there wasn’t a thing a person feared more than Firebender wife. They had originated from The Era of Kyoshi, because, what was the thing that made the most fearless and powerful Avtar scared? Her Firebender wife Rangi.</p><p>But to Azula she could never understand those jokes. People could make thousands of jokes about Fire Nation wives but there wasn’t nothing more terrifying than her Water Tribe wife when she was angry.</p><p>And Azula was about to make her very mad.</p><p>She made it to the entrance of the palace and clutched the soldier standing ground.</p><p>The soldier’s eyes widened in horror. “Princess Azula!” The soldier lifted her as if she were nothing, Azula’s cries dying on her throat. If she wasn’t so weak she would have burned her hands for touching her so suddenly.  “Go fetch Lady Katara!” The soldier roared to her companion. The firebender wanted to roar in protest but she was too weak to doing so. If she could, she would have asked for her brother. At least he wouldn’t further kill her.</p><p>She felt herself being moved, dizziness coming over her. The wind blowing on her face felt too harsh. She kept blinking, dark spots appearing on her vision and she wondered idly if blood had travelled to her eyes too.</p><p>Keeping her eyes open seemed like a struggle but she fought with herself to keep conscious. She didn’t need to worry Katara more than needed.</p><p>A shriek distracted her of her pain momentarily. “Azula?!” Her dear wife appeared in the line of her sight. She looked terrified more than anything and Azula hated herself more for it. “Azula!”</p><p>Suddenly Katara was hovering over her, tears overflowing from her eyes. “You idiot.” The waterbender’s words were laced with both concern and ire. “You absolutely reckless idiot.”</p><p>“I’m fine, darling.” It took all her willpower to drag those words out of her throat but Azula was proud of herself for not coughing through them.</p><p>Katara scoffed through her tears. “You are clearly not.” She narrowed her eyes.  “And don’t ‘darling’ me right now.”  It was a long shot anyway. Katara usually melted when a pet name escaped her lips but she guessed Katara wasn’t on the mood right now.</p><p>Even though her vision was blurry, Azula could see the exact moment when her wife’ face became a stone. She looked beyond her, “ Deposit her in our chambers and go fetch the physician.”</p><p>“Isn’t better to get her to the infirmary?” The soldier questioned dubiously. What a fool.</p><p>“Didn’t I make myself clear? Get my wife to our chambers and be careful, I don’t want to see a hair out of place. “ She narrowed her eyes. “Or do I have to bloodbend you for you to do it?”</p><p>Azula felt the moment the soldier shallowed in fear. “Of course not, Lady Katara.”</p><p>Azula closed her eyes as she felt herself being moved again, with Katara barking orders to the other soldier.</p><p>She opened them again when she felt the bed against her back, the pain on her head returning harder than ever. More red spots appeared and she was sure she was staining the bed with her blood. The adrenaline was starting to wear off and pain was coming from every limb of her body, making the firebender delirious with it.</p><p>Still, she kept herself awake until she could hear Katara’s voice again. Wheter it was a minute or an hour, Azula couldn’t tell the difference. She felt water creeping up her neck, and the pain on her head being more tolerable now.</p><p>“Stay with me.” Katara pleaded with a thread of a voice. “Stay awake.”</p><p>“I’m trying.” Azula wanted to say but the words never came out of her. She wanted to, but she was so tired, so exhausted.</p><p>With the pain on her head finally giving away a bit, she disappointed Katara once again by letting herself fade into darkness, unable to keep awake.</p><p>At least, Azula thought before she lost conscious, Katara wouldn’t kill her.</p><p>No, her wife was going to heal her and then kill her herself.</p><p>With that last thought in mind, she slipped away into darkness.</p><p> </p><p>Azula woke up feeling like she got chewed up and then spited out by a rhinophant. She swore everything hurt, from her scalp to the tips of her toes.</p><p>She blinked, hoping to adjust her eyes to the brightness but her room was dark instead. A candle was on her bedside and she was about to clasp her finger and make it lit when a voice stopped her, “Don’t.”</p><p>Azula felt her soul leave her body. She wasn’t one to show fear and so she didn’t, but dread pooled at her stomach when she remembered how angry Katara had been. Everything from last night was blurry but Katara’s anger was clear as a day in her memory.</p><p>So she turned her hand flat, knowing that disobeying her wife wasn’t an option right now. Some small part of Azula still wanted to do it, some small suicidal part that had led her to all of these injuries.</p><p>“Don’t even think of using your firebending right now, you need all the energy you can.” Katara stepped closer and Azula could see her face, so angry, looking down at her.</p><p>“Katara-“ Azula started but her wife talked before she could say anything else.</p><p>“Do you even know what it was like for me?! To see you like that?! Do you even fanthom how hard is to heal you?!”</p><p>“I’m fine.” Azula protested but the moment she said those words she regret them. Katara’s face impossibly twisted into an angrier face.</p><p>“You bruised your rips, one broken wrist a twisted ankle and a wound on your head that couldn’t stop bleeding!” Katara sighed, and her eyes filled with tears. This, Azula hated and feared more than the anger.  She felt like the worse person in earth for making Katara cry. “So don’t you dare and tell me that you are fine when I had to put together every piece of yourself while making sure you didn’t bleed to death. Don’t you dare dismiss me when I have to patch you up everything you are broken.”</p><p>Her wife pressed a hand against her eyes. “I can’t keep doing this.”</p><p>Azula felt a familiar panic in her belly. Surely, Katara wouldn’t leave her? “Katara, you know I had to, it was for our family’s safety”</p><p>“Not when that means you will come back to me clinging to life!” The water on a bucket nearby splashed out, showing her wife’s distress. Okay, now Azula wanted to roll her eyes. “I wasn’t clinging to life. I got hurt and that was a foolish mistake that happened because I was weak.”</p><p>She was sure Katara was gonna throttle her now. “Weak?! Azula you were recovering from a fatal wound that almost took you away from me! You were in no conditions to go out and fight again.” Azula winced. That fatal wound had been another mistake. She couldn’t seem to stop making them now.</p><p>The mattress dipped with her wife’s height and she felt her cold hand intertwine with her warm one. “Surely you understand I can’t keep doing this.” Katara’s eyes were desperate, a plea. “I threatened that soldier with blodbending him!”</p><p>Azula’s voice was quiet, careful. “But that wasn’t you, you were worried because of me.” She squeezed her wife’s hand. “Please, Katara. Don’t burden yourself with things that are my fault.”</p><p>Katara pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes. “You don’t understand.” Her voice trembled. “That was me. It was a part of me, a part I try to bury but nonetheless it’s still <em>me</em>.”</p><p>“And you don’t understand because I’m so scared of that part of me, every day I try to be the best version of myself but when I look at you  I can’t bring myself to care.” Tears were making her wife’s eyes shiny. “And you don’t understand because every day I feel like I have to push against this monster growing on me but when you, when our family is hurt I don’t care about morality, I don’t care about what’s wrong or right I only care about making the bastard that hurt you suffer. And right know the only thing I can think about is you hurting and how much I want to kill him for daring to touch you. I would have gone and killed him if he wasn’t dead already.”</p><p>Azula tried to sit up, incredulity at what her wife had just told her but Katara stopped her. “Katara you think you are a monster? I was the girl that tried to kill the avatar, my brother, that I blasted lighting against you and had everyone living in fear of me. You aren’t the monster Katara, you love fiercely and that’s what makes you want to destroy everything that has hurt the people you care about.”</p><p>Katara laughed bitterly.. “I guess we make quite the pair.” She caressed Azula’s cheek and her breath stilled like a dumbstruck teenager. “That’s why we fit so well.” The firebender said.</p><p> </p><p> Katara looked at her with a mystified look on her eye. “But does it make right then? To want to kill?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m so scared Azula of that part of me and only my family brings it out and I’m so scared. I can deal with that for the most part but if you keep putting yourself at risk I’m just gonna go and boodblend anyone who poses as a danger to us, so I don’t have to see you like this again.”</p><p>“Katara, you married a warrior.”</p><p>Katara seethed and Azula wished she had delivered “And you married a healer.” Katara sighed, her hands shaking. “If this keeps up I’m not sure I will always be around to help you.”</p><p>Azula heard the threat between lines. Katara loved her, more than Azula could have ever imagined, sometimes Azula thought, too much for her own good. But Katara deserved better, she deserved so much better than worry to death for her wife.</p><p>“Don’t do that.” Katara berated her. Azula frowned. “Don’t martyry yourself.”</p><p>The pout the royal princess was making right now was something only two people had seen. “You said you were gonna leave me.”</p><p>“I didn’t say that.” Katara ran a finger through her cheek. “But if me leaving is the only thing that can get through that stubborn thick head of yours, maybe I’ll consider it.”</p><p>Azula felt tears pricking on her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think, I just wanted to protect you. But you are right, and I should do better before I head into dangerous situations.”</p><p>Katara squeezed her hand. “You should start with taking guards with you when you go toe to toe with an assassin the avatar himself couldn’t catch.” She kissed her forehead and Azula felt the heat. “I know you think you are invincible but please remember you have a family waiting for you every time you think of doing something stupid.”</p><p>“It wasn’t stupid.” Azula protested because it truly wasn’t. But a glare from Katara made her shut up. She pulled away from the bed and disappeared out of Azula’s sight. When she was about to protest Katara came back with a wheelchair.</p><p>“I thought I couldn’t leave the bed.” The action of having to move was already sending flares of pain up her body.</p><p>“I thought you said it wasn’t that bad.” Katara shoot her a look and Azula wasn’t going to backtrack now. “Besides, I’m taking you to the healing catacombs. I think they can make your healing faster.”</p><p>Azula bit back a huff. “Let’s do this.”</p><p>The ride there hurt like hell but Azula never complained because then Katara would be so smug.</p><p>But now, submerged in the water, she couldn’t really complain. Warm water was up to her shoulders and she was already feeling better while Katara tended to her wounds.</p><p>“If you ever pull something like that again, I’m leaving you.” Katara said looking at her wounds.</p><p>“You wouldn’t.” She croaked out, the argument they just had a few hours ago coming back.</p><p>Katara gave it a rest. “Okay, I wouldn’t.” She put more pressure than necessary in a wound, making Azula gasp. “You are lucky you are pretty.”</p><p>“Oh yeah because you only stay with me because I’m pretty. Ignore all of my other attributes.”</p><p>“You are good lover too.”</p><p>“Mhmm.”</p><p>“And stubborn with a thick head but I love you.”</p><p>Azula sighed contently. “I love you too even though every time I get hurt you threaten to kill me again.”</p><p>“Don’t be so dramatic.” Katara said with a gentle smile. She maneuvered her hands around the wound on Azula’s ribs.</p><p>Azula was about to say something, but she was interrupted by a scream. “Mama!” A toddler clutching a blue dragon came. Katara picked her up and gave her a kiss on the forehead but Kya kept wriggling, making grabby hands at Azula. “Mama! Mama!” She kept screaming.</p><p>Katara rolled her eyes. “I swear you are her favorite.”</p><p>Azula bit back a laugh. “Hey, let me have that. She looks like a carbon copy of you, what if she wants my attention more?”</p><p>“Mama-“ Kya looked close to burst to tears now. Oh no. Both Katara and Azula shared a glance, neither of them ready to have their ears shattered by  their kid.</p><p>“Princess I can’t carry you because I’m a bit hurt but Mommy can hold you and you can sit next to me, huh? How about that?”</p><p>Kya looked at Azula with those big eyes that reminded her so much of Katara. “You hurt?”</p><p>“Only a little bit.”</p><p>“But you are strong as a dragon!” Kya shook the dragon on her hands.</p><p>Azula smiled. “Even dragons get hurt.”</p><p>“And then their wives have to patch up the impulsive dragons.” Katara muttered under her breath.  Azula didn’t say anything this time. It was going to take a while for her wife’s anger to fade.</p><p>Katara stepped in the water, holding Kya in her arms. “No waterbending okay?”</p><p>Kya pouted and Katara raised an eyebrow. Kya sighed, Azula couldn’t blame her child. Katara was <em>scary. </em>“No waterbending, mommy.”</p><p>“That’s my girl.” She kissed her hair and came to sit beside Azula in the water.</p><p>“Kya.” Azula said, relief at seeing her daughter unharmed. She looked up at her wife. “I thought she was hidden away?”</p><p>“I asked Zuko to bring her yesterday,” Katara’s voice was firm. “Seeing you like that- You don’t know how hard it was. I sleep hugging our daughter to keep me sane.”</p><p>They both looked at Kya, who had forgotten  about Azula already and was playing with her dragon in the water.</p><p>“I’m sorry.” Azula said softly. “It won’t happen again.”</p><p>Katara scooped up closer, almost resting her head on her shoulder but not doing it because it would hurt. Instead their skins brushed.</p><p>“I hope you keep that promise.” Katara said as softly and then so gently kissed her cheek.</p><p>Azula sighed, content with the warm water, content with having her wife beside her and seeing her daughter play and said, “I’m never going to break that promise.”</p><p>And she meant it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I wanted to feel productive lol</p></blockquote></div></div>
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